First 4-day convention in Ireland? I think not…
@rcadecon are claiming to be the first four-day convention in Ireland? I think Gaelcon would like a word with you guys, since they’ve been running a four-day convention over the October bank holiday weekend for... well, ever?
So, I apparently have a new phone. It’s apparently an HTC Explorer. It apparently runs on the 3 network, and apparently the contract is for 12-months and is on the FlexiFix 25 plan.
It’s all apparently because I wasn’t the one who actually ordered it. Three decided it would be a good idea for their telesales division to ring my mother to inform her of this deal whereby anyone she recommends to Three will earn that person and herself a month free. So she got a new phone/SIM/contract in the hopes that either I would take it and take on the contract, or my sister would take it to replace one of the many phones she’s gone through and “broken”. (Also, something about my sister being embarrassed to tell her friends she has a Tesco Mobile 089 number)
Not terribly shiny, but shinier than what I had.
One thing I’m still struggling with is adapting to all the new ringtones and notifications. Gone are the monotone series of beeps that were the only option with my old Nokia 1101. And in their place I put several of the sounds from Team Fortress 2.
So, my ringtone:
My message alert tone:
And my e-mail alert tone:
Sometimes I hear them and have to spend a while figuring out why they’re playing, and then try and remember which is which... Bonus points if you know what sound bites they are.
I’m not a happy person right now. Earlier today, an older relative of mine – someone who I had previously considered as very close to me – said that they were “appalled that I had the audacity to say that what I did online was considered work“. Saying that what I do in making various videos for YouTube, and earning money from that media based on a contract I have with an American media company, was not real work.
Now, I’m well aware that currently this doesn’t earn me enough money by itself to be able to live off, and because of this I wouldn’t ever go out and say that I do this for a living. But I take serious offence to being told that I’m not doing “work”, period. Continue reading
Even though the news was only broken a couple of hours ago, by now everyone knows that Google plans to kill off Google Reader at the start of July. I really do fail to see how a service that is still used by so many people – despite the claims that usage has dropped so far – is being removed, without much of an alternative being offered.
Where’s the “No, it’s not OK” button?
They can say that the advent of social media has dropped the requirement for an RSS reader, however the premise of social media couldn’t be further from the premise of a feed reader. With social media being designed generally for content to be instantly digested, a feed reader allows content to be made available to people to be digested at a time that suits. I know that this premise is available as an app for your smartphone, I just can’t think of the name of it off the top of my head.
While Twitter and Facebook lists are a potential alternative, they don’t offer much in the way of filtering the content, nor do they easily showcase what content is new for you. Twitter has no “new content” flag, and while Facebook does have an unread figure on pinned lists, this number is dubious at best, and once it goes over 20 shows an unhelpful “+” mark instead of an accurate figure. A similar thing could be said for site-specific dashboards like on WordPress.com, Blogger, Tumblr etc.
The lack of good integrated alternatives is also disappointing. I haven’t used a desktop mail client in at least four years now, not since I moved my e-mail and all other services to using Google Apps. Before that I was using the feed reading capabilities of Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail desktop – which makes sense given how feed reading is somewhat similar to e-mail reading.
My usage of Reader extends further than just the dashboard. If you see my Blogroll page, you’ll find the embedded subscription widgets from Google Reader of all of the sits I’m subscribed to. (Well, those I’m willing to make public, that is...)
As much as I’d love to post an image of my overall Google Reader stats here, my stats are broken when I had to migrate my feeds over from my old Google account to my current one once Reader was made available for GApps customers. However, in two-and-a-half years on my current account, I’ve read over 66,000 items.
Hopefully Google will turnaround on this decision and keep Reader active come July. Or at the very least, they merge the Reader functionality into GMail given how close they are to each other.
Also, I do have to wonder how many people have read this post, having had it show up in their own Google Reader?
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, we have Dairy Milk with Oreo now? WHY AM I ONLY FINDING OUT ABOUT THIS NOW?!?!?!?!?!?!
Dammit, now I’m going to have to spend the best part of next week finding this and stocking up like mad on it. Going by the pictures I saw on this blog, I will fall in love with it. Almost as much love as what I have for Häagen-Dazs Cookies and Cream – which is basically Oreos without the brand name!
Just a damn pain that Cadbury direct on Amazon won’t ship to Ireland 
